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Potato Nests
Wash well and then bake in an oven some carefully selected potatoes of equal size and when tender cut a slice off the top of each and carefully scoop out some of the interior. Rub through a fine sieve the potato which has been scooped out and mix with it an ounce of butter, a tablespoonful of cream, with salt and pepper to taste. Put the whole in a stewpan and stir it well over a fire; when it has become hot move it to one side and stir in the beaten whites of one or two eggs; fill the potato skins with this preparation and brush them over with a brush dipped in warmed butter. Serve on a folded napkin placed on a hot dish garnished with fried parsley.
A stuffed baked potato, lightened with beaten egg white. The whole dish turns on when the whites go in and how little they are worked afterward.
- The hinge: egg whites off the heatThe hinge: egg whites off direct heat -- Beat the whites and add them only once the pan has been drawn away from the fire; the recipe says to move it to one side and stir them in. Worked over a flame they scramble and weep, and the filling is likelier to collapse than to puff.
- Oven temperatureBake the potatoes at 400F until a skewer slides through, roughly 50-60 minutes for large baking potatoes. Prick the skins first so they do not burst.
- They need a second bakingOscar stops at brushing with butter. Return the filled skins to a 400F oven for 10-12 minutes so the whites set and the tops color; without it the filling is loose and the barely cooked white unpleasant.
- StewpanA plain heavy saucepan. Nothing about the dish requires a deep or lidded pot.
- Quantities are for a small batchAn ounce of butter is 2 tablespoons, and a tablespoonful of cream is a scant measure. That is probably enough for two or three medium potatoes, though the recipe gives no count; scale up proportionally and add cream by feel until the puree is soft but still holds a shape.
- Ricer instead of sieveRubbing hot potato through a fine sieve is the period method for a lump-free puree. A ricer or food mill does the same in seconds. Do not use a food processor, which turns potato to glue.
- Fried parsleyDry the sprigs thoroughly and drop them into 350F fat for about 15 seconds, until they stop sputtering and turn brilliant green. Wet parsley spits violently; overcooked parsley goes brown and bitter.
- ServingThe folded napkin on a hot dish absorbs steam and keeps the potatoes from sliding. One potato per person as a side dish, two as a light course.
Oscar Tschirky was not a cook by trade but the Waldorf's ma tre d'h tel, and the recipes gathered under his name in 1896 reflect the hotel's kitchen working in the French idiom that ruled American luxury dining at the end of the century: potatoes returned to their skins with butter, cream and egg white are a near cousin of pommes de terre duchesse, though bound with beaten white rather than yolk, served in an edible container. The name "nests" belongs to a whole family of hollowed and molded garnishes prized in that era. The folded napkin and the fried parsley are the giveaways of hotel service rather than home cooking, as is the assumption that a hot oven and clarified butter are always within arm's reach. Stuffed baked potatoes were not new in themselves, and the dish survives in American kitchens as the twice-baked potato.